Offered up to the incredibly opinionated and occasionally intelligent audience of alt.2600 back in 1994, this relic from the days of USENET is a short and great collection of tips on dealing with online discussions. Will Spencer's advice applies to every forum I've ever participated in (including ours,) and remain spot on today… showing us that no matter how much the internet has changed, people evolve very slowly.
Occasionally, you WILL be flamed for no reason at all. This happens
to everyone. Some newsgroup reader with a room temperature IQ will
misread your eloquent post and rant about your idiocy in a 400 line
tirade. Forget about it, there is nothing you can do. It's not even
worth your valuable time to try to straighten it out.One important thing to remember is that unless you are exceptionally
stupid or exceptionally brilliant, few newsgroup readers will remember
your name from topic to topic or from post to post. You might be
screaming adversaries with another newsgroup reader in one topic, and
close allies with the same newsgroup reader in another topic. And you
may never notice it's the same person. It's the post that's
important, not the poster.
